


give me all your greatness (or give me nothing at all)

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: Morphology [3]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drinking, Getting Together, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Polyamory, Recreational Drug Use, Relationship Negotiation, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 04:24:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: “Anything else I should know about Zack?”Ryan stays quiet for a few moments. Eventually, he moves his hand from the back of Shane’s neck to his chin, grasps it gently with his thumb and forefinger, and turns it to the side.“He likes being bit,” Ryan murmurs. “Right here.” His tongue traces the hollow at the base of Shane’s throat, and Shane nearly chokes on a groan. “And he told me to ask you out. He said you’d say yes.”(or, when Shane first wanders into his Introductory to American History classroom at ten o’clock on the first Wednesday of the semester, his only plan for the next four months is to pass the class.But that's before he meets Ryan and Zack.)





	give me all your greatness (or give me nothing at all)

**Author's Note:**

> this took way too damn long to write but! here we are! please let me know if i've forgotten any important tags or if you notice any egregious typos (I'm very tired, but I didn't want to sit on this any longer). 
> 
> as always, special shoutout to [Ella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elasticella), because I'm fairly certain it's somehow because of her that this idea sprang into fruition in the first place. 
> 
> title from [Greatness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTacj9I1LCA) by Don Broco.

When Shane wanders into his Introductory to American History classroom at ten o’clock on the first Wednesday of the semester, he’s barely awake. Yawning widely and clutching his travel mug protectively, he folds himself carefully into a chair in the third row and tries to make his legs comfortable.

As he’s debating whether or not it’s better to stretch them out into the next row (and probably get in someone’s way) or press his knees up into the underside of the table (and probably be sore for the next hour and a half), the person sitting directly in front of him clears their throat.

Shane glances up and chokes on his coffee.

The guy sitting in front of him, turned around in his chair to face Shane, is absolutely gorgeous, in an utterly frat boy way. He’s wearing a backwards, bright purple baseball hat, and his t-shirt is tight around his biceps. He’s smiling slightly, and his dark brown eyes are reflecting the overhead lights like a pond reflects the full moon.

Shane suddenly feels ten times more awake.

“Could I borrow a pen?” the guy asks, waving the one clutched between his fingers. “Mine’s dead.”

“Yeah, totally.” Shane rummages around in his bag until he finds one, which he passes over. “Let me know if that one works.” The guy turns back to his desk, scribbles something in the margin of the notebook resting in front of him, and gives Shane a thumbs-up.

“Thanks man. I’ll give it back when we’re done.”

“Keep it,” Shane blurts out. “I’ve got loads more.” The guy’s smile ratchets up a notch before he answers.

“Thanks. Appreciate it.” Once he’s spun back around to face the front of the room, Shane sighs out a deep breath and forces himself to stare down at his own notebook until class begins. The class is small enough that the professor wants to take attendance until he can learn all of their names by rote, so he starts once he’s handed out paper copies of the syllabus to everyone.

Gorgeous Frat Boy’s name is third on the list.

“Ryan Bergara?”

“Here,” he answers, sticking his hand up in the air. Once he lowers it, he takes his hat off just long enough to shove his fingers through his disheveled black hair, which only makes it messier.

Shane swallows hard and almost misses the professor calling out his own name.

When he reviews his notes afterwards, they’re disjointed, downright incomprehensible in spots. It’s obvious that, if he wants to actually pass, he’s going to have to pay less attention to Ryan and more attention to the professor. 

Maybe, if he’s lucky, Ryan will just drop the class, and Shane will be able to breeze through without a single distraction. 

&.

He’s not lucky. 

Ryan’s punctual to every single lecture and always takes the same seat, right in front of Shane. He takes incredibly thorough notes, fills page after page in his notebook, and when their professor makes a terrible joke or groan worthy pun, Ryan laughs with his entire body in a way that is quite possibly the most endearing thing Shane has ever seen. If something is particularly funny, he actually _wheezes_.

They work together a few times, when their professor asks them to get together with someone sitting nearby to discuss whatever topic they’re learning about that particular day. While they do spend most of those discussions on track, they diverge often enough for Shane to learn bits and pieces about Ryan’s life. He learns that Ryan is captain of one of the intramural basketball teams, that he’s planning on majoring in film studies, that he’s a firm believer in ghosts and the paranormal.

Mainly though, he learns that his crush on Ryan isn’t going to go away anytime soon, which is going to make for a _very_ long semester.

&. 

He returns from class one Tuesday afternoon to find his door marked with caution tape, along with a sign informing him that the room next to his is being sprayed for bed bugs and, due to the fumes potentially traveling through the vents, he can’t return until at least six o’clock that evening.

Skin crawling at the mere _thought_ of bugs invading his room, he heads back out. His floor has a common area, but it reeks of stale alcohol no matter how recently it’s been cleaned, and there’s usually someone sleeping off a hangover on one of the couches. His laptop is dead, and his best friend isn’t done class for another hour, so after he sends her a text to let her know the situation, he stars wandering campus aimlessly.

Eventually, he ends up in one of the newer buildings, one that houses not only the larger lecture halls (which can hold upwards of five hundred people apiece), but some of the athletic facilities. The air smells faintly of chlorine and sweat, and as he walks by one of the gymnasiums, a voice that he knows all too well from his Wednesdays and Fridays unexpectedly cuts through the quiet.

“That was a damn foul and you know it!”

Shane backpedals and glances through the small window inset in the swinging doors. There’s a basketball game in progress or, more accurately, there’s a game on pause. Most of the players are standing around chatting to each other, but Ryan is at center court, arguing with the referee and furiously gesturing at a blonde-haired guy standing next to him, who’s shaking his head and rolling his eyes like he’s heard this all before.

The thing is, Shane does not give a fuck about sports. At all. He’s never been interested in either participating or watching, and he _really_ doesn’t understand the point of basketball. It just seems to consist of a lot of running back and forth, over and over again, for an excruciatingly long time.

But he still has forty-five minutes to kill before Jen is done class, and he’ll feel less guilty filling a spot on the bleachers than taking up a booth in the cafeteria or a prime spot in the library.

The fact that Ryan looks absolutely _incredible_ , hair plastered to his forehead and bare arms glistening with sweat, is also a factor, but not the main one. 

(At least, that’s what he tries to tell himself.)

He slips inside the gym and walks along the back wall to the bleachers, which are surprisingly full considering the time of day and the fact it’s an intramural game, not varsity. He takes a spot in the back row, which is a little shadowed due to the placement of the pennants and banners hanging from the ceiling, and props his feet up on the row in front of him. It’s not going to be comfortable for very long (he doesn’t understand why bleachers aren’t padded, and it only makes him hate sports more), but for now, it’s better than continuing to wander aimlessly around campus. 

It’s difficult to hear what’s being said between the referee, Ryan, and the other guy, who is presumably the captain of the other team, but it’s clear that the conversation doesn’t end in Ryan’s favor. When the referee turns his back and walks over to the player holding the ball, Ryan flips the other captain off. In response, he just grins and jogs away, leaving Ryan at center court with one hand curled into a fist, looking like the very definition of _fuming_. It’s only when the other captain yells, “C’mon man, you’re holding us up!” that he jogs over.

“Fuck you Zack!” he yells, which leads to an immediate admonition from the referee about his language. 

The next twenty minutes unfurl mostly without incident. There’s a lot of running back and forth, a lot of passing, and fairly minimal amounts of actual scoring. At one point, Ryan scores what might be a three pointer (maybe - the massive electronic scoreboard isn’t turned on, and Shane doesn’t really know how the whole scoring thing works), and his face lights up. He high-fives one of his teammates (nearly has to lean up on his toes to do it) and grins as he switches places with someone on the bench.

Less than a minute later, the opposing captain (Zack, if Shane remembers correctly) sinks a shot from center court, and Ryan’s grin vanishes in favor of a vicious looking scowl.

He doesn’t get a chance to see how the rest of the game unfolds; Jen gets out of class a little early, and he ducks out to meet her. But later that night, when he’s lying in his too-small bed, listening to heavy bass thud through the ceiling from his upstairs neighbor, his mind wanders to Ryan, to the way his face lit up when he scored, to the fluid way he pivoted and moved, to the way his arms flexed whenever he made a shot.

By the time his mind stops wandering, he has to go take a shower in order to clean himself off.

He sleeps much better after that.

&.

Every so often, when he has some time to kill between classes or while he’s waiting for Jen to finish up for the day, he finds himself walking past the gymnasiums and glancing inside to see if there’s a familiar face on the court. More often than not, he strikes out; either the gym is empty, Ryan’s team isn’t playing, or there’s another kind of sport in progress, volleyball or floor hockey.

But sometimes, he gets lucky.

He always sits in the back. Not for any nefarious purposes, not because he actually minds the idea of Ryan knowing that he’s there; it’s more that he has a feeling that, if said topic was ever to come up when they were in class together, it would undoubtedly spiral into Shane saying something that he can’t easily take back.

He’s sure that it’s only a matter of time before he slips up anyways, but he would rather that happen closer to the end of the semester.

He never stays for the whole game; regardless of Ryan’s presence, basketball is still pretty damn boring, and he’s generally on a time crunch. But he watches enough to know that most of the games unfold in the same way. When Ryan scores, he lights up, gets a little cocky (which is _not_ something Shane should find attractive, but it’s still something his mind wanders to when he’s unable to sleep at night). Inevitably, if he's playing Zack’s team, it’s only a matter of time before Ryan is either chirping Zack from the bench or is directly in his face, cursing him out for something or another.

Zack, for his part, seems totally nonplussed about Ryan’s anger, shrugs it off with a lazy grin or chirps Ryan from his own bench, but casually, like he doesn’t actually care and is just going along with the flow.

After catching three such games, Shane comes to believe that, if looks could kill, Zack would be long dead.

&.

Towards the end of October, just after round one of midterms concludes, Jen brings Shane to a party at some upperclassman’s house off campus. The alcohol is flowing freely, and it’s a Saturday; there’s nowhere he needs to go tomorrow, nothing he needs to do except some readings (and, worst comes to worst, those can wait until Monday morning).

So he indulges a little.

Or, rather, a lot.

“Jen, it’s not _fair_ ,” he groans, waving his sixth (or seventh, possibly even eighth) beer for emphasis. He’s stretched out on the couch, head resting squarely in Jen’s lap while she absently tries to braid the longer parts of his hair together. “His _arms_. He could choke me so easily.”

“Anyone could choke you,” she says. “ _I_ could choke you.” After a pause, her eyes narrow, and she continues, “Wait, are you saying he _could_ choke you or you _want_ him to choke you? Because those are two very different things, buddy.”

“I don’t know!” Shane exclaims. Truth be told, he’s never really been interested in the whole concept of breathplay, but he’s sure that there are lots of things that he’d be interested in if Ryan was somehow involved. “But like, his laugh, Jen. He _wheezes_. It’s adorable.”

“Uh-huh. You’ve told me all about the wheezing.”

“You’re not _listening_ to me though.” When he sits up, the room spins alarmingly, and he distracts himself by taking another sip of his beer. He glances around the crowded room, and his eyes lock on a guy with blonde hair standing nearby, sipping a beer and idly checking his phone. Shane can’t remember the guy’s name, but he knows that he’s seen him around before, so he snaps his fingers until the guy looks up and moves closer. “I need you to back me up here, because _she_ ,” he pauses, waving a hand at Jen, who is busy staring at a cute girl perched on the arm of the couch, “just doesn’t get it. But like... Ryan Bergara, right?” The guy nods.

“Yeah. Ryan,” he mutters into the mouth of his beer, eyes averted. “I know exactly what you mean.” With that, he slips into the crowd, but Shane still takes his nod and words as proof that he’s right.

(He wakes up the next morning with a pounding headache, a churning stomach and only vague memories of the night before, but when Jen tells him that he spent nearly fifteen minutes waxing poetic about Ryan, he’s not surprised.

Mortified, yes.

Surprised, no.)

&.

In the second week of November, he goes to one of Ryan’s games not because he has some time to kill or because he’s waiting for Jen or because his room is being fumigated, but because he wants to.

Ryan had said earlier in the day, when they’d been paired off to discuss one of their readings, that it was the last game of the intramural season. When Shane had asked if he was nervous, Ryan had just smirked.

“Nah. We’ve got it in the bag.”

And, well, not that Shane doubted him, but he still had to see it to believe it.

He gets distracted by a paper and makes it to the gym five minutes before the game is due to start. The back rows of the bleachers are almost entirely filled, and he doesn’t exactly feel like tripping over anyone’s legs in order to get to one of the empty spots, so he aims for the third row instead, behind Ryan’s bench. The team has just finished their warm-up, and Ryan appears to be doing some kind of pep talk, one that Shane can only hear as a murmur under the thrum of all the other voices in the room.

When he’s done talking, he grabs his water bottle and looks up. Almost immediately, his eyes lock on Shane, and he freezes with his bottle midway to his mouth.

Shane’s face flushes with unwelcome heat. He’s too far away to say anything, so he settles for waving slightly. After a moment, Ryan returns the wave and beams at him.

Shane’s face grows even warmer.

Right from the moment Ryan and Zack meet the referee at center court, the tension between them is obvious. Before Zack has even said a word, Ryan looks pissed off, and by the time they back away so that the ref can toss the ball into the air, Shane can see his teeth worrying at his bottom lip, like he’s trying to bite back a particularly barbed comment. 

The rest of the game proceeds in much the same manner; vicious comments get thrown back and forth, along with elbows. During the fourth quarter, something happens (Shane doesn’t exactly know what; he’d been too distracted by Ryan to see much more than a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye), and Ryan is immediately across the court and in Zack’s face, yelling something about a foul. The ref steps in and separates them almost immediately, but not before Shane hears Zack loudly groan, “Give me a damn _break_ , Ryan.”

In the end, Ryan’s team loses by a handful of points. Shane thinks about sticking around for a bit, heading down to the bench to tell Ryan that he played a good game, but by the time he steels himself and commits to the decision, Ryan’s already gone. 

&.

Two days later, when they have class together, Ryan drops down into the spot next to him only a minute before class begins. He looks mildly disheveled, cheeks flushed, like he just ran from somewhere, but even if Shane was rude enough to comment on it, he’s too fixated on the fact that Ryan has broken his routine.

This could either be very good or very bad.

Shane is inclined towards the latter, but before he can find out one way or another, class begins. Their professor starts things off with a ten minute video, and while Shane does his best to pay attention, he keeps getting distracted by Ryan’s presence, by the fact their knees keep bumping together, by the fact that Ryan’s arm is mere inches away from his.

Once the video ends and the lights come back up, their professor asks them to discuss it, and Shane turns in his chair so that he can better face Ryan.

Before he can ask him what he thought, Ryan speaks.

“Do you want to do something with me sometime?”

The thing is, Shane _has_ thought about this possibility, once or twice. He’s come up with some cool and collected remarks he could use on the off chance that Ryan ever asked him out, but all of those remarks have suddenly vanished from his mind, like they never existed at all. 

The topic of the video, on the other hand, is still fresh in his head, so what comes out of his mouth is, “Like grab coffee or go back and stop the Kennedy assassination?”

Immediately, he feels the urge to pack up his stuff and dart from the room. Sure, campus isn’t _that_ big, but he’s sure that if he tried hard enough, he could strategically avoid Ryan until they graduate.

Maybe by then he won’t be so mortified with himself.

Amazingly, Ryan doesn’t back away or look at him like he’s grown two heads. Instead, he gifts Shane with one of his wheezing laughs and grins widely. Their knees bump together again, but this time, Ryan doesn’t move away.

“I was thinking coffee first. Time travel seems like more of a second date thing.”

And with that answer, Shane is totally and utterly fucked.

&.

They grab coffee after class at a small shop just off campus and end up talking for three hours, right up until Ryan has to go to his last class of the day. The conversation flows so freely that Shane almost forgets that this is a brand new thing, that they haven’t known each other for ages, that he was mortified mere hours ago for totally sticking his foot in his mouth.

He ends up walking Ryan to his class, and once they reach the lecture hall, Ryan comes to a stop just beside the door and yanks his phone from his pocket.

“This afternoon was fucking incredible,” he says. “And I’m going to be late, but I want your number, because I kinda want to do this again as soon as possible. Like, tomorrow, maybe?”

“Really?” Shane blinks with surprise as he takes Ryan’s phone and adds his number to it. “You want that?” Ryan nods.

“Yeah, man. I’ve wanted this from the beginning of the semester. I think we’ve got some time to make up for.”

Shane couldn’t agree more.

“Name the time and the place, and I’ll be there,” he says, handing the phone back to Ryan. 

“Alright.” Taking a deep breath, Ryan leans up on his toes and presses a quick kiss to Shane’s cheek. “I’ll text you after class.”

Shane remains frozen in place for a few moments, a little overwhelmed at just how well the day has gone, before he spurs himself into movement. As he heads back to his dorm, he decides to call Jen, because the events of the last few hours can’t be summed up in a simple text, no matter how many emojis he adds to it.

“Jen, you’re not going to fucking believe this...”

&.

Later that night, Ryan sends him a link to an event posted on the school’s website. It’s a free movie matinee, showing a film that just came out on DVD that Shane had meant to go see in theaters but never got around to.

**_R: does this work for date number two?_ **

Shane immediately responds.

_S: only if they have popcorn._

_**R: if they don’t have popcorn, I’ll burn the place down** _

Shane’s laugh is startlingly loud in the quiet of his dorm room.

_S: I didn’t really get an arsonist vibe from you tbh_

**_R: have you met many arsonists? cause I feel like that’s something we should talk about_ **

By the time Shane passes out for the night, they’ve agreed that the movie _will_ work for date number two and agreed to disagree on what kind of criminal vibe Ryan throws off.

Just before noon, they meet outside the auditorium showing the movie. Sure enough, there’s popcorn for sale, although Shane’s positive that it’s not going to be buttery enough for his own tastes.

Still, popcorn is popcorn, and the bright smile that Ryan flashes at him once Shane walks over makes up for the lack of butter.

They end up tucked into the back corner of the auditorium, with the wall on Shane’s left and two empty seats between Ryan and the next clump of people. Shane expects them to fill up at any moment, but when the lights go down, they’re still empty. 

That makes it a lot easier for him to commit to dropping one hand to Ryan’s knee ten minutes into the movie.

In return, Ryan grins and steals a handful of Shane’s popcorn.

Forty-five minutes into the movie, their popcorn long gone, Ryan leans over into Shane’s space and murmurs, “This is kind of boring.” 

“You’re right,” Shane sighs. He’d been expecting something a little more exciting, and his attention has definitely wandered a few times (although he suspects that would have happened regardless of what movie was playing). When he turns his head to keep talking, the words disappear from his mouth, because Ryan is _right fucking there_ , mere inches away from him. If it wasn’t for the armrest between them, they’d probably be touching in half a dozen spots.

Shane swallows and squeezes Ryan’s knee tightly. He doesn’t want to rush this, but based on the way Ryan is staring at him with wide eyes, lips parted, they’re both thinking the same thing.

“Can I kiss you?” Shane murmurs. Ryan nods before he leans in and erases the already minimal space between them. It’s barely more than a brush of lips, but it makes Shane’s heart pound in his chest, makes him bite back a gasp. After he backs away a few inches, Ryan’s eyes slowly flutter open, and a lazy smile spreads across his face. 

“We’re _definitely_ doing that again,” he says, nose bumping against Shane’s.

Shane gives up on trying to pay attention to the movie after that. 

Afterwards, Ryan walks him back to his room. Normally, Shane would invite him in, but he has some projects that he has to work on, so he reluctantly stops in front of his door. The hallway is fairly quiet; music is drifting out of two half-ajar doors, but the rest of the rooms are shut up tight. Shane wouldn’t be surprised if most of their inhabitants were still asleep. 

“I’m sorry the movie sucked,” Ryan says. “I thought it was going to be a lot better.”

“It’s fine. I think you made up for it in other ways.” Shane doesn’t mean for it to sound so suggestive, but based on the way Ryan’s mouth curls into something similar to the cocky grin he gets after he’s scored a point, he doesn’t mind.

“Is that so?” Ryan takes a step forward and drops his hands to Shane’s waist. “And what ways were those?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about.” Taking a breath for bravery, Shane reaches up and drags his thumb along the curve of Ryan’s bottom lip. Ryan’s eyes widen, and he groans softly before he leans up and kisses Shane hard enough to press him back against the door. His hands tighten on Shane’s waist, and in turn, Shane slides his fingers into Ryan’s hair as best as he can, considering the sheer amount of product in it.

He’s on the verge of reconsidering his decision to dedicate the rest of the afternoon to his projects when a nearby door opens and someone wolf-whistles at them. Ryan pulls away with a breathless laugh, cheeks flushed, hair disheveled.

_I did that_ , Shane marvels to himself.

“I’m not going to distract you any longer,” he says. Pressing one last peck to Shane’s jaw, he lingers just long enough to murmur, “But next time, I want to see your room.”

“Alright,” Shane replies shakily. “Promise.”

(It’s a promise that he keeps.)

&.

The next two weeks pass by in a blur of prolonged make-out sessions and hours spent debating movies, the paranormal, and every other topic under the sun.

One Friday, while the hallways are packed with revelry and pounding music, they decide to spend the night in. Shane’s bed is really too small for both of them to be for any extended period of time (not surprising, considering that it’s really too small for him alone), so they make a nest on the floor out of Shane’s blankets and pillows and a few of his bulkier sweaters. There’s a twelve-pack of beer resting by their feet, eight of which are gone by ten o’clock. There’s a movie playing on Shane’s laptop, but he’s not paying it any mind. He has more important things to pay attention to.

Namely, Ryan, who is definitely not sober.

Which is fine, because neither is Shane.

While Ryan cracks open another beer, Shane’s mind turns back to earlier in the day, when he’d met Ryan after his film studies class so they could grab an early lunch. Ryan had just finished kissing Shane’s cheek when Zack wandered out into the hallway, and Ryan had stopped and just _stared_ at him. It wasn’t like the way Shane saw him glare when they were playing together; there wasn’t enough animosity for that, but there’d been _something_ there that made it more than an idle glance. 

He’s curious. 

And drunk.

“What’s the deal with you and that Zack guy?” he asks, nudging Ryan’s shoulder with his own. “Do you just hate him because of the whole basketball thing, or is it something else?” 

Ryan flushes scarlet and mutters, “It’s nothing,” into the mouth of his bottle.

Shane’s curiosity kicks up a notch.

“You sure about that?” Shane grins as he sets his beer up on his desk and turns to face Ryan. “Because you’re blushing a bit hard for it to be nothing.” With a groan, Ryan flops onto his back, and Shane crawls between Ryan’s legs, props himself up on his hands so he can hover over him. He doesn’t want to push Ryan, doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable in any way, but before he can tell Ryan that he’s just teasing, Ryan sighs loudly. 

“That last game you came to,” he begins, reaching out and twisting his fingers into the front of Shane’s t-shirt, tugging it up so that his stomach is exposed. “The one I lost. Afterwards, in the locker room, he... gave me a hand job.”

For a moment, it’s all Shane can do to blink dumbly as he tries to process what he just heard. It’s unexpected, that’s for sure, but it’s not really the content of Ryan’s confession that he’s having a difficult time working through.

It’s the image that the confession has put into his head.

He shouldn’t be imagining it so vividly, shouldn’t be imagining it at _all_. He shouldn’t be imagining what Ryan looked like when Zack jerked him off, shouldn’t be wondering if his head was tilted back against the lockers or if his fingers were twisted tight in Zack’s shirt. He shouldn’t be thinking about what Ryan might sound like when he comes.

What he _should_ be doing is changing the subject.

He doesn’t.

“Did you return the favor?” he asks, clearing his throat. Ryan nods as his fingers slide underneath Shane’s shirt and trail up his chest.

“Yeah. Twice.”

Another barrage of images appear in Shane’s head.

“Sounds like he owes you one.” His throat is dry, but reaching for his beer would mean that he’d have to move away from Ryan, and he’s not willing to do that, especially since Ryan is shaking his head. The hand that isn’t flitting around underneath Shane’s shirt drops to the back of his neck and tugs him closer, until Shane has to drop down to his elbows. Ryan leans up and starts smearing a trail of kisses up the side of his neck, and for a few seconds, Shane almost forgets what they were talking about, is too focused on trying to keep his breathing regular as Ryan’s mouth drags against his throat.

But then Ryan lets out a shuddering breath and says, words brushing against Shane’s jaw, “He blew me the second time around.” 

“Oh,” Shane says, swallowing hard and trying not to think about what Ryan’s dick might feel like against his tongue. “Anything else I should know about him?”

Ryan stays quiet for a few moments. Eventually, he moves his hand from the back of Shane’s neck to his chin, grasps it gently with his thumb and forefinger, and turns it to the side. 

“He likes being bit,” Ryan murmurs. “Right here.” His tongue traces the hollow at the base of Shane’s throat, and Shane nearly chokes on a groan. “And he told me to ask you out. He said you’d say yes.”

“Well, he was right.” Shane shudders as Ryan’s teeth gently skim up his throat. “Anything else?”

Ryan shakes his head vigorously and, in a flurry of movement that Shane is barely able to comprehend, switches their positions so that he’s hovering over top of Shane. His pupils are wide and blown, and Shane doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look so gorgeous.

“Can we stop talking about him now?” he asks, tracing one finger up the zipper of Shane’s jeans. 

“Absolutely,” Shane answers, pressing his hips up into Ryan’s hand and tugging him down for a kiss. 

Approximately half an hour later, for the first time, Shane finds out what Ryan looks and sounds like when he comes.

It’s even better than his mind’s eye imagined. 

&.

Over the next few weeks, Shane comes to realize just how often he actually sees Zack. Their campus is a fair size, but he runs into him _everywhere_ ; when he meets Ryan after class, in passing in the hallways, in the cafeteria, at one of the pick-up games Ryan sometimes drops in on. Sometimes, Zack says hi, even if Shane is on his own; at the very least he nods, smiles a bit, before he goes on his way.

And the thing is, Shane is fairly certain that, while it’s obviously none of his business what (or who, rather) Ryan did before they started dating, it’s human nature to feel a little jealous in situations like this, to maybe resent Zack, just a little.

But that’s not the problem he’s having.

The problem is that he can’t stop thinking about what Ryan told him. 

It becomes clear exactly how much of a problem this is when, just before finals officially start, he heads to the library to try and get some studying done. The place is absolutely packed with students, and he wanders around for twenty minutes before he finally spots a free place at one of the window tables on the sixth floor. People are awfully fond of taking them over for themselves, but the person sitting at this one has all their stuff neatly contained to one side of the table, so Shane doesn’t feel bad about asking if he can take the other spot.

By the time he realizes who is sitting at the table, it’s too late to backpedal, because Zack has already looked up from his laptop.

“Hey, man,” he says with a smile.

“Hey.” Even though being in close proximity to Zack probably isn’t going to help the fact that he can’t stop thinking about what Ryan told him, he _does_ need to get some work done, and there’s too many distractions in his dorm room. “Anyone sitting there?”

“Be my guest.” Shane drops down into the free chair and goes about making himself comfortable, arranging all of his things (including his legs) so that they aren’t in Zack’s way. 

He’s just opened his laptop when Zack speaks again.

“How’s Ryan?”

Coming from from anyone else, it would sound like the most innocuous of questions, and really, there’s nothing in Zack’s tone that betrays it as anything other than idle conversation. But when Shane glances up, Zack is absently rubbing his knuckles against the base of his throat, and Shane feels the phantom drag of Ryan’s tongue in the same spot, hears his voice in his ear as clearly as if he was sitting right beside him.

_He likes being bit. Right here._

“He’s fine,” Shane answers, forcing himself to look away from Zack’s neck. It turns out to be a mistake, because his eyes land on Zack’s mouth, and his mind turns to the image of that mouth wrapped around Ryan’s dick. He has to swallow hard before he continues. “I think he misses playing against you.”

Zack scoffs, but his cheeks turn light pink.

It’s a good look on him.

“Yeah. Bet he does.”

He falls quiet after that, and during the half hour that follows, Shane actually manages to make some headway on the project that’s been kicking his ass for the last few days. But eventually, he hits a block again, and while he tries his best to keep his attention focused on his computer, he finds himself glancing across the table.

Zack is leaning back in his chair, staring at his laptop and running his fingers through his hair. It’s not a movement Shane should fixate on, but the thought that those fingers have touched Ryan, have actually gotten him _off_ , is impossible to ignore. After a second, Zack glances up, and his mouth quirks into a smile.

“Not having any luck with yours either?” he asks, leaning back with both of his hands tucked behind his head, legs stretching out underneath the table and bumping into Shane’s. The movement makes the sleeve of his shirt tug up to the point that Shane can see clearly, for the first time, that the tattoo on the pale skin of Zack’s inner arm is a tree, branches outstretched.

He wonders if anyone has ever traced the tattoo with their tongue.

“No,” he answers, slapping his laptop closed. “I think I’m gonna head out. Try again in a few hours, maybe.”

“Solid plan. Tell Ryan I said hi.”

Shane swallows again.

“Yeah. Will do.”

Later that night, Ryan comes by so that they can ostensibly work on their history final together. 

They manage to keep that charade up for all of ten minutes before they end up tangled together on Shane’s bed.

Ryan is astride Shane’s lap, in the process of pulling Shane’s shirt over his head, when Shane remembers the message he was supposed to convey.

“Hey,” he pants as Ryan flicks his shirt across the room. “Zack says hi.” Ryan freezes, mouth a hairsbreadth away from Shane’s. His brow crinkles with confusion, and Shane clarifies, “I saw him at the library.”

“He seriously said _hi_?” Ryan says. Shane nods. “What an asshole.”

With that, he leans back down to seize Shane’s mouth again, and all talk of Zack (and homework, for that matter) ceases for the rest of the evening.

&.

The rest of the semester flies by.

On the last official day of exams, the dorms ignite with one last gigantic hoorah before everyone heads home for the next few weeks. Music pounds from seemingly every room, liquor flows as freely as a river, and Shane is utterly surprised that the pot smoke billowing through the hallways hasn’t set off a fire alarm or led to a visit from the cops (although it’s probably only a matter of time). They were supposed to meet Jen on the tenth floor, but there’s no sign of her, so they’re simply hanging out in the hallway, sipping on beers procured from a giant tub of ice in the kitchen.

Although free alcohol is nice, everything is so _loud_ , and the hallway is sweltering from the sheer number of bodies packed into it. Shane is on the verge of asking Ryan if he wants to head back to the relative peace and quiet of Shane’s room when a familiar face, one that has been part of more than one of Shane’s recent dreams, emerges from the crowd behind Ryan’s shoulder.

“You two look like how I feel,” Zack says. He’s clutching a red solo cup in his hand, but he doesn’t look the slightest bit intoxicated.

“What the hell does that mean?” Ryan asks with a raised eyebrow. 

“Overwhelmed.” Zack waves a hand through the air for emphasis. “I mean, it’s a bit much, right? All of this.”

“I was just thinking that,” Shane says. Someone down the hallway bursts out laughing, loud enough that it could almost classify as a cackle. “It’s a bit loud.” 

“Exactly. That’s why I have an idea.” Zack digs into the pocket of his extravagantly ripped jeans and comes out with a small plastic baggie containing two joints. “I’m willing to share, if either of you are interested.”

“What’s the catch?” Ryan asks, brow furrowed with suspicion.

“There isn’t one.” Zack’s smile wavers slightly as he takes a sip from his drink. “Despite what you think, Ryan, I’m not actually an asshole.” There’s a note to his voice that renders the comment more than innocuous, something almost like _hurt_ , and Shane thinks he should probably be more concerned by the presence of that note. He should probably be more worried about the potential consequences of being in the same room as both Ryan and Zack, should probably be worried that some kind of awkward confession is going to spill out into the air.

But frankly, he just wants to get out of the hallway, and Zack’s room is probably closer than the elevator.

“I’m down,” he says, polishing off the rest of his beer and stooping to set the empty bottle on the floor, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to shove back to the kitchenette just to drop it into the recycling. When he glances over, Ryan is frowning slightly, and Shane leans down to kiss his cheek. “Ry? Do you want to?” After a moment, Ryan shrugs and pounds back the rest of his beer.

“Sure,” he says, dropping his bottle to the floor before he turns to Zack. “You’re right around the corner, aren’t you?”

“I’m so honored that you remembered,” Zack answers with a roll of his eyes as he stashes the baggie back in his pocket and turns to shoulder through the crowd.

Considering the fact that they’re only going a few yards, it takes an inordinate amount of time to make it to Zack’s room. Once they step inside, Shane pushes the door closed and locks it. The room is laid out the same as Shane’s, furniture all in the same spots, just as ridiculously small. It’s cluttered but clean, aside from the small mound of clothes on the floor that Zack is in the process of kicking under his desk. 

“You guys can sit wherever,” Zack says. Once he’s done with the clothes, he pushes the window open as far as it will go and sinks to the carpeted floor, back pressed up against one of the legs of his bed. Shane supposes that they could probably sit on the mattress, but it would be weird to be hovering over Zack, so after glancing over at Ryan, Shane crosses the room in three steps and sits down underneath the window. There’s a faint breeze stirring the thin curtains, and after the inferno of the hallway, it feels absolutely divine. Ryan settles down between his legs, with his back against Shane’s chest. If Zack’s bothered by the affection, he doesn’t show it. He simply glances at them for a moment before he digs the baggie and a lighter out of his pocket.

“Alright,” he says, sparking the lighter to life. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

For the first few minutes, they settle into a surprisingly normal rhythm. While passing the joint back and forth, they talk about their finals, about their plans for the winter break. If Shane tries hard enough, he can almost pretend that Zack is just an acquaintance of theirs, can almost ignore the history that the room contains.

Almost.

“You know,” Zack says through a cloud of smoke, gesturing at Ryan as he leans forward and passes the joint to Shane, “I’m glad he listened to me. I told him to ask you out.”

“He told me that,” Shane replies, inhaling deeply and letting the smoke flood his lungs. 

“I told him about the hand jobs too,” Ryan unexpectedly says, plucking what little remains of the joint from Shane’s fingers. Zack’s face turns pink.

“They were good hand jobs,” he mutters, clearing his throat and leaning forward to take the joint from Ryan, eyes lowered towards the floor. “Really good, actually.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ryan groans, dropping his head back against Shane’s shoulder. “What the fuck, man?” Zack shrugs.

“Just being honest. What classes are you two taking next semester?”

The transition back into normal conversation is surprisingly smooth. The longer they talk, the closer Zack scoots over, until his feet are brushing against Shane’s knee. His speech gets slower, and there are tiny red veins filling his eyes. His laugh is free and frequent, and his smile rarely falls away from his face.

He’s nothing less than utterly gorgeous.

So is Ryan. 

As the weed continues to work its magic, he relaxes back even further against Shane’s chest, casually traces his fingers up and down the length of Shane’s arm, which is wrapped around his waist. When Shane makes a pun that even he’s willing to admit is terrible, Ryan just groans and tilts his head back to look up at him. When Shane glances down, they’re mere inches apart, close enough for him to feel Ryan’s breath against his mouth.

“That was literally the worst thing you’ve ever said,” Ryan says, glassy-eyed and smiling so brightly that it almost hurts to look at.

“It _was_ pretty bad,” Zack says with a matching grin, knocking his knee against Shane’s. 

If there was any chance that Shane _wasn’t_ totally and utterly gone on both of them, it vanishes at that moment. 

He’s not sure how much time passes before Zack sparks up the second joint. He takes the first inhale (which is only fair, seeing as he’s the one supplying) before he moves to kneel in front of them. When he leans forward to pass the joint to Ryan, his free hand drops to Ryan’s other knee, exposed through the rips in his jeans.

It might just be for balance. It might not be.

Either way, it suddenly feels like the air has been sucked out of the room.

Shane feels Ryan’s shoulders stiffen, hears the breath catch in his throat. Even though Zack is still holding the joint out to him, Ryan doesn’t move.

It takes a moment for the realization to work through his dulled senses, but Shane becomes acutely aware of how close they all are. Ryan is firmly caught between them, and it would be so easy for Zack to crane forward a few inches and press his mouth to Ryan’s. If Shane turned his palm up and reached forward a few inches, he could easily press his hand to the front of Zack’s jeans, could pop open his button and drag down his zipper.

Based on the way Zack slowly glances up at Shane and maintains eye contact as he backs away with a final drag of his fingers down Ryan’s leg, joint still in his other hand, Shane suspects he isn’t the only one having those kinds of thoughts.

“You alright?” Shane asks, keeping his eyes on Zack as he tilts his head down to kiss the side of Ryan’s neck. Ryan _shudders_ and arches his back, drops his head back against Shane’s shoulder and tightens his fingers around Shane’s wrist.

Zack’s throat bobs.

“We should go soon,” Ryan stutters, clearing his throat as Shane presses another kiss to the side of it. 

“You sure?” Zack asks. There are ashes sprinkling down into his lap, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He takes a deep breath, and his pink tongue drags along his bottom lip. “You don’t... you don’t have to. You could both stay. If you want.”

Shane’s head spins. 

“Ryan?” he asks softly, dragging his nose up the side of Ryan’s cheek. Regardless of what he wants, he doesn’t want to push one way or the other. This is wholly Ryan’s decision to make.

Ryan swallows heavily and shakes his head before he clears his throat.

“I need to pack,” he says, clambering to his feet. “Sorry, man.”

“That’s fine,” Zack replies through a cloud of smoke that hides his features. “I’ll see you guys around.”

“Yeah,” Shane says as Ryan takes his hand and urgently pulls him towards the door. “See you around.” 

Ryan stays quiet as they take the elevator down to Shane’s floor, stares at the ground like the secret to life itself is written in the stained, sticky tiles. His grip on Shane’s hand doesn’t loosen, not even when Shane comes to a stop in front of his door. 

“Ryan,” he begins, trying to punch through the fog filling his brain in order to find the words he wants. Before he has any luck finding them, Ryan shakes his head and roughly smooths his free hand up Shane’s chest, curves it around the back of his neck.

“Can I come in?” he asks, sounding almost _desperate_ , and even if Shane _wanted_ to say no, so long as Ryan asked with that tone of voice, he doesn’t think that he could deny Ryan anything.

“Okay.” He fishes his key from his pocket and jams it into the lock with shaking hands. He lets Ryan in first, locks the door again, and turns back around in time for Ryan to press him up against the door and kiss him frantically, like he’s been trying to contain himself for hours and it’s finally overflowing like a levee splitting in two. Shane gives back as good as he gets, slides his hands down into the back pockets of Ryan’s jeans and tugs him even closer. When he squeezes tightly, Ryan bites a groan into his bottom lip and starts to roughly tear at Shane’s belt. Once it’s free, he goes for his button and zipper, and his jeans slide to the floor. Even though the overhead light is dark, and the glow coming from around the door and through the window is barely enough to see by, Shane still feels ridiculous being fully dressed from the torso up, so he starts working on his own buttons. The fog clouding his thoughts slows his fingers down as well, and he keeps fumbling.

The fact that Ryan is still kissing him insistently, like the only thing keeping him grounded in Shane’s mouth, really doesn’t help.

“Fuck,” he mutters when his fingers slip on the last button of his shirt.

“Need some help with that?” Ryan asks, taking a step back and wrestling his own shirt over his head. It disappears into the dark shadows pooling across Shane’s floor like errant puddles of oil, and Ryan’s fingers roughly dance up Shane’s sides underneath his shirt, thankfully too firm to be ticklish. On cue, Shane’s damnably slow fingers finally pop the button free, and he shrugs his shirt to the floor. 

“Got it,” he answers, dragging his tongue across his swollen bottom lip and stepping away from the door. Ryan’s hands drop to his waist and stay there as he backs into the edge of Shane’s bed and hops up onto the mattress. He pulls Shane up after him and, not for the first time, Shane is intrinsically aware of just how fucking small his bed is, how it was very clearly not designed for this kind of thing.

Still, if the powers that be picked these beds with the explicit intent of keeping people from fucking around, they greatly underestimated the sheer determination of aroused college students.

Ryan ends up sprawled underneath him, knees bracketing Shane’s hips. Shane can’t see his chest rising, but he can hear Ryan’s quickened breath, can feel his ribs expanding when he drags his hands down Ryan’s torso. He intends to get Ryan’s jeans off, but Zack’s words, his invitation for them to _stay_ , are still at the forefront of his mind, so instead of stopping at Ryan’s waistband, he keeps moving, sits back and drops his hand to Ryan’s left knee.

He can’t be sure if his fingers are perfectly aligned with the phantom imprint of Zack’s, but based on the groan that leaves Ryan’s mouth, it doesn’t matter. 

“Did you think he was going to kiss you?” he asks, swallowing hard and glancing up into the darkness shielding Ryan’s face from him. Ryan doesn’t answer for a long time, and Shane drops his free hand to where Ryan is hot and hard behind his zipper.

“ _Fuck._ I...” He sighs loudly before he continues. “I really did.”

Shane pops open the button of his jeans and drags Ryan’s zipper down, tooth by tooth.

“Did you want him to?”

“Yeah,” Ryan answers, gasping as Shane palms him through the thin fabric of his boxers. “What would you have done? If he’d kissed me?”

Shane draws in a shuddering breath. If there’s one thing he should lie about, it’s what’s about to come out of his mouth, but he’s too stoned and too turned on to be anything but absolutely honest.

“You want the truth?” he asks, sliding his hand away from Ryan’s knee and leaning forward until they’re face to face.

“Yeah,” Ryan says against his mouth, gasping as Shane’s fingers curl around the hard outline of his dick. 

“I would have watched. And _I_ would have kissed you here, over and over.” He ducks his head and presses his mouth under the hinge of Ryan’s jaw, leaves it resting there while he continues. “And I think that, between the two of us, we could have taken you _apart_.”

Ryan _keens_ , slides his fingers into Shane’s hair, and tugs him up into a bruising kiss.

For the next several minutes, neither of them manage to say anything more substantial than gasped curses.

Afterwards, Shane drops the towel they used to clean up to the floor, cracks open the window and drops back to the mattress onto his side, precariously balancing on the edge so they’ll both fit. The fog permeating his brain is even more intense now, burgeoned by exhaustion and the daze of his orgasm, but he knows one thing.

There’s no way they can ignore the Zack shaped elephant in the room anymore.

(Frankly, he doesn’t know if they were really trying to ignore it in the first place.)

“We should talk about it,” he says, shuddering as cool air brushes along his sweat-dappled spine. “About him, I mean.” Ryan sighs, slides an arm around the back of Shane’s neck, and pulls him in close, until Shane is pressed against his side.

“Yeah. We should.” Twisting his head, he drops a kiss to the top of Shane’s head. “But can we wait until we’re back from break? I... I think I need some time to figure things out.”

Frankly, Shane thinks he could use that extra time as well.

“Yeah,” he answers. “After break. We’ll deal with it then.”

&.

Break goes by in the blink of an eye.

Shane returns three days before the new semester officially begins. Ryan is already back, and as soon as he’s unpacked the essentials, Shane heads over to Ryan's dorm. When he steps into the elevator, he hesitates for a moment, finger hovering over the button for the lobby.

He knows what floor Zack lives on. He knows what room he’s in. He could go talk to him now, if he’s back yet, could see if they’re on the same page. If they aren’t, it would certainly save them all some time.

But he remembers Zack asking them to stay. Asking them _both_ to stay.

Unless something has changed in the weeks since that night, unless Zack got sober and realized he made a mistake, Shane suspects that they all want the same thing.

The problem is that Shane doesn’t know _what_ to say, let alone how and where to go about saying it, and his talk with Ryan doesn’t result in any definitive answers. Sprawled on Ryan’s bed, nearly on top of each other out of necessity, they toss a few ideas back and forth, but none of them stick, and their frustrations grow until they crash together in a tangle of limbs and dragging fingers and searching teeth. 

After that, Shane is too busy getting fucked into the mattress to think about much of anything.

&.

The following day, Ryan’s friend TJ invites them to a party at a house on the nearby fraternity row. Shane’s fully willing to admit that it doesn’t exactly sound like his kind of scene, but it can’t be any worse than the hallway fiasco that had predated their fateful encounter with Zack, so he agrees to come with for a few hours. 

They get there early, while there’s still space to actually maneuver through the corridors of the sprawling, messy house. TJ is nowhere to be found and hasn’t answered any of Ryan’s texts (which is apparently par for the course), so they go straight to the kitchen to grab drinks.

Shane takes two steps into the room and freezes in the middle of a sentence.

Zack is leaning back against the counter, sipping on a beer and talking to another guy that Shane vaguely recognizes as another member of his basketball team. He’s wearing ripped black jeans and a burgundy short sleeved button-up, and a bright grin is splitting his face. After a second, his laugh echoes through the room, easily audible above the music and the murmur of half a dozen overlapping conversations.

Shane probably should have expected this. Campus really _is_ too fucking small.

The thought that they could maybe slip into the hallway and figure out how exactly to deal with this occurs to him, but before he can say anything to Ryan, Zack’s eyes land on them. His grin wavers a little, and he claps the other guy on the shoulder, which seems to end their conversation, as he walks away with a thumbs-up.

“What in the fuck are we doing?” Ryan mutters under his breath, squeezing Shane’s hand tightly.

The truth is, Shane doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what this dynamic between the three of them is, what it’s grounded in, if it has any real future or if it’s going to be a one-time thing.

What he does know is that they’re never going to know the answer to any of those questions unless they make a move to find out.

“ _I’m_ about to do something that’s probably really stupid,” he answers, reluctantly wriggling his fingers free of Ryan’s and crossing the kitchen before he can lose his damn nerve. Zack is in the middle of another sip when he comes to a stop in front of him, Ryan close behind him.

“Hey, guys,” Zack says, absently rubbing at the back of his neck and dropping his eyes to an indeterminate point over Shane’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about what happened. Before break, I mean. I-”

Shane knows that it’s rude to interrupt but, conversely, it seems ruder to let Zack unnecessarily apologize, so he takes another step forward, drops his palms to Zack’s cheeks, and kisses him, presses him back against the counter, crowded room be damned.

Zack freezes for a minute, mouth half-open, the remnants of his sentence dying in his throat. Thankfully, before Shane can pull away and worry that he’s totally fucked this up, misread the entire situation, Zack _melts_ against him. His beer drops to the counter with a clatter, and his hands curl into the front of Shane’s shirt, tug him even closer. Zack’s stubble prickles against his skin, and he wonders what it feel like against his tongue. That’s a little far to go for the moment, so he settles for dragging his tongue along Zack’s bottom lip before he pulls back to take a breath.

He can hear people whispering nearby, catches his name half a dozen times. He knows that this is going to get spread across campus, that most of his immediate friends will probably know about it before he gets a chance to tell them, but fuck it. 

There are worse things to be known for.

Zack’s eyes slowly flicker open, pupils dark. The corner of his mouth ticks up, only to fall again when he glances over in Ryan’s direction.

Thankfully, Ryan almost immediately sets him at ease.

“Holy shit, Shane.” His eyes are wide, and his tongue drags across his own bottom lip as Shane watches. He almost looks _awestruck_.

Mainly, he looks turned on.

“Sorry,” Shane says, sliding his hands down to Zack’s shoulders. “Was that alright?” He’s pretty sure that he knows what Ryan’s answer is, but he waits until Ryan nods before he turns his attention back to Zack, who is still clutching Shane’s shirt tightly. He nods as well and lets out a deep breath, smiles brightly.

“Yeah. Definitely alright.” After glancing back and forth between them again, he continues, “This is both of you. Right?” Shane nods in confirmation. Ryan steps closer and slowly, like he’s testing boundaries, he brushes his thumb down the hollow at the base of Zack’s throat, leaves it resting there.

“Both of us,” Ryan says. Zack looks utterly _dumbstruck_ , like some piece of precious, life changing knowledge has been revealed to him.

“If we move fast,” he says slowly, head lolling back as Ryan drags his thumb up the front of his throat, “we can probably steal someone’s bedroom. If that’s what you both want.”

“Well, we shouldn’t stay here. Not unless we want to end up all over Facebook,” Ryan says, carefully brushing his thumb along the line of Zack’s jaw.

“I thought you wanted to go viral, baby,” Shane says, reluctantly sliding his hands away from Zack’s shoulders and taking a step back.

“Shut up, Shane.” Ryan leans in and presses a quick, hard kiss to the side of Zack’s neck, one that makes Zack’s eyes flutter shut, before he also steps back. “Lead the way, man.”

There are people lining the stairwell from top to bottom, all of them clutching alcohol, most of them glancing curiously at the three of them as they head up to the second story, Zack in front. All of the doors leading off the landing are closed, but Zack beelines for one towards the back of the house, knocks once and shoves the door open.

“Justin owes me one,” he says as they step inside. Ryan immediately heads for the bed (which is, thankfully, considerably larger than the ones in the dorms) and sits down on the edge while Zack locks the door and leans back against it. Shane remains standing for the moment, doesn’t know quite where to go; now that he’s made the initial move, his nerve has melted away in favor of straight up _nerves_.

Thankfully, Ryan steps up to the plate.

“So,” he says, clearing his throat. He glances at Shane first before his eyes settle on Zack. “Shane thinks that the two of you could take me apart.”

“ _Jesus_ Ry,” Shane says, face burning with a mixture of arousal and embarrassment. Beside him, he hears Zack suck in a deep breath, and he reaches out to brush his fingers against the back of Shane’s hand. 

“Yeah? And you don’t think we could?” There’s the barest hint of a challenge, a goad, in his voice, a hint that Shane knows Ryan is going to latch onto.

“I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as you think,” Ryan answers, kicking his shoes off and sliding back on the bed, relaxing back against the pillows. “You’re welcome to give it a shot though.”

“The good ol’ college try,” Shane says, and Zack laughs and moves to stand in front of him. He’s tall enough that Shane barely has to tilt his head down in order for their mouths to be level with each other.

“I think we can do it,” Zack says thoughtfully, dropping his hands to the hem of Shane’s hoodie and tugging it up over his head. Absently, Shane notices that his fingers are trembling slightly. “He’s not as tough as he thinks he is.”

“Especially when you kiss him here,” Shane continues once his hoodie is on the floor. He lowers his head and brushes his mouth underneath the hinge of Zack’s jaw, stubble prickling against his lips. Zack sighs and nods.

“Or when you suck him off.”

“Yeah,” Shane moans, pressing his teeth into Zack’s skin. “That too.” He glances over Zack’s shoulder at where Ryan is stretched out on the bed. He looks half-wrecked already, face flush with color, one hand resting just above the waistband of his jeans, like he’s already thinking of touching himself.

“I have an idea,” he says, turning his attention back to Zack and beginning to work on the buttons of his shirt. “But if you’ve got a better one, let me know.”

“Hit me with it.”

&.

There’s some inevitable awkwardness at first, a few moments where their limbs tangle together in the wrong way, a few moments where Shane is worried that he’s not dividing his attention equally enough.

But when everything clicks together, it _really_ clicks.

The position is the same as the last time they were all in a room together, but the bed is a lot more comfortable than Zack’s floor, even if the headboard _is_ digging into Shane’s back. Ryan is down to his boxers, which aren’t leaving a lot to the imagination; they’re tented, and there’s a dark spot on the front of them from where he’s leaked against the fabric. Shane wants to drag his fingertip across it, but that would defeat the point of this whole thing.

Namely, make Ryan fall apart and beg for them without them actually touching his dick.

For a while, he’d been goading them along, asking if their efforts were the best they could do, but he hasn’t said anything besides _fuck_ for the last few minutes. His back is pressed against Shane’s chest, and both sides of his neck and the strong line of his shoulders are littered with marks of varying shapes and colors. Shane’s arm is wrapped tight around Ryan’s waist, keeping him from moving too much. Every time Ryan _does_ move, he presses back against Shane and puts pressure on where Shane is hard and aching inside his jeans, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Ryan’s chest is heaving, and his hands are constantly on the move, flitting between the two of them; curling tightly around Shane’s arm, dragging through Zack’s hair (which is an absolute mess), twisting into the sheets. Currently, one is gripping Zack’s shoulder hard enough to leave fingerprints behind, while Zack works his way up the inside of Ryan’s thigh, inch by inch.

Dropping his chin to Ryan’s shoulder and gently grazing his teeth against his pulse point (which elicits a breathless moan and possibly the loveliest sound Shane has ever heard from Ryan’s mouth), Shane glances down at Zack, who is in the middle of sucking a bruise into the thin skin just below the leg hole of Ryan’s boxers. After a second, he meets Shane’s eyes and smirks. He doesn’t speak, but Shane still hears the message all the same.

_Just a little bit longer._

After Zack has successfully left a bruise behind, he leans back a little, like he’s planning his next move. Shane takes advantage of it by dropping his free hand, the one that isn’t curled tightly around Ryan’s hip, to Zack’s cheek. With another smirk Zack twists his head and sucks two of Shane’s fingers into his mouth, right down to his knuckles.

Simultaneously, Shane’s dick twitches, and Ryan lets out a sound that can only be described as a desperate whine.

“If one of you doesn’t touch my dick soon, I’m going to kill both of you.” He’s too breathless for it to sound like much of a threat, and Shane laughs as he presses another kiss to the underside of Ryan’s jaw and slides his fingers from Zack’s mouth.

"Like you could hide a body without one of us helping you,” he murmurs fondly.

“You’d get caught.” Zack sits back on his knees, face flushed and lips glistening with saliva, hair falling onto his forehead. “Maybe we should make you wait longer, for saying something like that.” If it were under any other circumstances, Shane’s sure that Ryan would have some kind of snappy comeback, but as is, he just shakes his head and starts working on Zack’s belt.

“C’mon,” he groans. He pushes back against Shane too hard for it to be anything but deliberate, and Shane bites a gasp into Ryan’s shoulder. “You win, alright? _Please_ fucking touch me.”

“Alright,” Shane says, moving his arm away from Ryan’s waist. “I guess you’ve earned it.” He wishes that he had a better view of Ryan’s face, wishes that he could see how he looks when Shane slides his hand into his boxers and wraps his fingers around Ryan’s dick, but the near-sob of relief Ryan gives him, hands freezing halfway through tugging down Zack’s zipper, is a damn good consolation prize.

After that, everything dissolves into the best kind of absolute chaos Shane has ever experienced.

By the time they all finish up, he’s kind of forgotten how to breathe. 

“So,” Zack says, panting for breath. He’s at Shane’s side, staring up at the ceiling, face flushed with color. “That just happened, right? Like, that wasn’t some kind of fever dream?”

“Do you have lots of dreams that end like this?” Ryan mumbles into the pillow, half-draped on top of Zack. He sounds barely conscious, but considering that he ended up coming twice, Shane doesn’t blame him. Zack shrugs, and his cheeks redden further.

“Maybe a few. Don’t judge me.”

“No judgment from me,” Shane says. “And yeah, that just happened. Wasn’t a dream.”

“Thank God.” Zack sighs and runs his fingers through Ryan’s thoroughly mussed-up hair. Glancing over at Shane, he continues, “I think we can beat our record next time.”

The thought that there’s going to be a next time, that Zack is actually _interested_ in a next time, makes Shane sigh with relief. Sure, they’re still going to have _some_ kind of conversation about this, about boundaries and logistics, but at least he knows this isn’t going to be a one-off. 

“Fuck off,” Ryan answers, dropping his chin to Zack’s chest. “I remember you specifically saying that if I played my cards right, I could fuck you one day, and I’m cashing that offer in. You can take a turn being tormented.” 

“I’m fine with that.” Zack turns his head and reaches out until his fingers find and twist together with Shane’s. “You down for that change of plans?”

Shane doesn’t have to think twice before he answers.

“You just tell me when to show up.”

&.

Shane is on the last page of his final take-home of the semester when his phone rings. He thinks about letting it go straight to voicemail, but when he glances down and sees Zack’s name staring back at him (along with his contact photo, which is him planting a ridiculously sloppy, drunk kiss on Ryan’s cheek), he decides to pick up.

“What’s up?” he asks. “I thought you two were supposed to be grabbing lunch.”

“We got sidetracked,” Zack answers. Shane can’t say he’s surprised. “I need you to tell your boyfriend to stop giving me hickeys.”

“He’s _your_ boyfriend too,” Shane laughs. “What’s with the sudden complaint?”

“My mom came by for a surprise visit this morning, and there was _no_ fucking explaining them away. I’m not gonna be able to look her in the face for _months_ , Shane.”

“I told him that if he wanted me to stop, he was gonna have to make me,” Ryan butts in. “But he didn’t try hard enough.”

“Shut up,” Zack says. “I’m sure that between the two of us, we can make you stop. Anyways, we still on for dinner tonight?”

“So long as I finish this paper in time. And as long as you two don’t get sidetracked again.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll save some energy for tonight, big guy,” Ryan says. “Let us know when you’re done and we’ll order the pizza. Love you.” Zack echoes the words, and even though it’s far from the first time Shane has heard them, he can’t help but smile.

Maybe one day, he’ll stop feeling the urge to pinch himself every time he hears them, but he doesn’t think it’s going to be anytime soon. 

He’s still not quite sure how he ended up with both of them in his life, especially since dating _one_ person hadn’t really been on his radar when he’d started the year, but he does know one thing.

Despite the arguments they occasionally get into, despite the way people talk about them behind their backs, despite the fact that Ryan and Zack’s competitiveness occasionally gets a little tiresome, he wouldn’t change them for the world.

“Love you too,” he answers, meaning it with everything he has. “I’ll see you soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
